Sunny Murray

Drummer, composer, and bandleader Sunny Murray was born in Idabel, Okla. in 1936. After moving to New York, a brief period of involvement with bebop musicians quickly gave way to several years of playing with Cecil Taylor (CT) in trio, quartet, quintet and septet settings (1959-1965). In addition to his longstanding association with the "88 Tuned Drums" of Taylor, he has worked with some of the most important voices on the saxophone in free jazz: Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Byard Lancaster, Kenneth Terroade, Frank Lowe, and recently Sabir Mateen and Assif Tsahar. Murray's pan-rhythmic approach, effortlessly swinging in often implied or seemingly nonexistent meters, has been highly influential on generations of jazz drummers.

All About Jazz: All right, well, I wanted to first make sure I was correct on your statistics. You were born in 1936, right?

Sunny Murray: Yeah, Idabel, Oklahoma.

AAJ: When did you first move to New York?

SM: I moved to New York in 1956. In one way or another, I had always been involved in music; rhythm and blues and that sort of stuff as a kid, and I reached a point in Philadelphia where I couldn't get anything else going at the time. I was 18 going on 19, so I thought I'd go to New York and create a music career. Like I said, when I arrived in '56, Caf' Bohemia was still open. As a matter of fact, I lived across the street from Caf' Bohemia, at 3 Barrow Street. And, you know I had to live on the streets for a year, in the Bowery; I paid some dues' But by 1959, I was playing with the cats. I don't even know how it happened; between my studies and my motivation, in four years I was sort of well-known playing with Cecil (who had a much longer bebop career than I) but I had sort of a few years' bebop career. The tenor saxophonist who sort of began my career was Rocky Boyd, and he was hot, very hot at that period. He was responsible for bringing Sam Rivers into the music, Tony Williams into the music; he's from Boston. So he helped me begin, and he was very encouraging of me in my studies, as we were living together downtown. Because, from [age] 20-22, I had a coffee shop in the Village, called Caf' Somethin' Else, and I sold my shop to get deeper into the music and started studying harder. When I had my shop, you know, I had my drums in the back, and one thing led to another, and I became professional with Rocky, around '58, but really on the map with Cecil, as far as people know.

AAJ: So you began playing bop, but had you begun playing in a 'free' way before Cecil, when you were playing with people like Jackie McLean?

SM: Now I did a job with Jackie McLean through Rocky Boyd, at which time, in 1958, I sat in a couple of times with James Moody, I played some sessions with Donald Byrd and Doug Watkins ' I did a lot of sessions. Some of the great drummers of the day were playing sessions together, at Count Basie's and Freddie's and Minton's. I met Jimmy Lyons at these sessions, before Cecil' we were session comrades. So in 1959, I met Cecil at a session at Caf' Roue, I played with CT there' a week later I got a phone call, and the owner told me I had a phone call from the pianist. He said, 'You remember the way-out pianist you played with?' His father called and offered me the job, but I never made the job. And then accidentally I got this loft downtown (at that period in New York, lofts were illegal), but I got a loft downtown on Dye Street, and so did Cecil, but I didn't know he was in the same building. As a matter of fact, he lived across the hall from me. So through some kind of way we met, and he said 'you're the drummer' and I said 'you're the pianist.' So he said 'do you have your drums' and I said 'Yeah' and he said 'well, bring 'em over here.' So' beboppers had all sorts of controversial opinions about him, like 'are you gonna play with that cat, he's so way out.' But John Coltrane was a very high admirer of Cecil during that period, even before because of that record they made [Hard Driving Jazz / Coltrane Time, UA 1959]. He supported Cecil at that period, when it was very difficult for CT, and so CT had just finished with that band of Denis [Charles], Steve Lacy and Buell Neidlinger. Buell stayed over for a minute, but Cecil was into something else, and you know, I had a high regard for Max Roach, drummers like that' and so I found that with Cecil, I had time to play more, to study more, and to really find a direction to really accompany him in a very positive, hip way.

AAJ: Well, yeah, there was a great change, too, from the group with Steve Lacy and Denis Charles, to the group with yourself and Jimmy Lyons playing. It seems worlds apart.

I love jazz because it's been a life's work.
I was first exposed to jazz by my father.
I met Hampton Hawes.
The best show I ever attended was Les McCann.
The first jazz record I bought was Herbie Hancock.
My advice to new listeners is to listen at a comfortable volume.